Word: afraid
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Movies today, whether comedies or dramas, are proud of having renounced the piety of old Hollywood. Yet, however strong their bite or bitter their first taste, they're afraid to let the moviegoer leave with a dark thought in his mind; they require happy endings. That's one reason the typical modern movie is no more advanced than the sentimental antiques of Hollywood's Golden Age - and why Hamlet 2 is as needy as its hero - because it wants not to be probing or profound or even witty but, above all else, to be loved...
...Kitty has been with her companion, Dear Daniel, for quite some time now. What does their future hold? -Chien Tong in New York, New York About 15 years ago, Japanese entertainers began to admit to their boyfriends and girlfriends, while before that it was a taboo because they were afraid of losing popularity. I didn't want to miss out on that, so we admitted that Daniel was her boyfriend. I don't know myself what I want to do with their future. (laughs) I am open to any suggestion. If everybody wants the two of them to have...
...Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa made it his first order of business to investigate corruption in his predecessor's administration, eventually revealing that former President Frederick Chiluba had stolen some $41 million from the state during his rule. Mwanawasa thereafter became known as a politician who was never afraid to challenge corruption and greed. He was one of the first African leaders to speak out against the Zimbabwean despot Robert Mugabe, lamenting the plight of the neighboring country as a "catastrophe." Two months after suffering a debilitating stroke, he died in Paris...
...then they wait for the glue to dry - almost. Nobody moves from his station, afraid to lose sight of his all-important bat, which could fall prey to a devious glue-tamperer. (And besides, who'd want to leave such a happy-smelling place?) The ITTF mandates that the glue cannot contain volatile chemicals, and only allows adhesives approved by the federation. They also collect every athlete's bat 30 minutes prior to a match and run it through a rigorous inspection for weight, sponge thickness and volatile compounds, returning the paddles in Ziploc bags to the referee just before...
What's next? How about the uniforms? In Beijing, ITTF vice president Claude Bergeret has been telling anyone with a tape recorder that the female table tennis players should not be afraid to shake things up a bit in the wardrobe department. The baggy shirts - the same as the ones the men wear - don't do much to set the female players apart. "We are trying to push the players to use skirts and also nicer shirts...with more curves," he told the China Daily...